Nonprofit Board Crisis

Nonprofit Board Planning and Mission #NonprofitBoards

In Sayta Nadella's (CEO, Microsoft) interview with Kai Risdall and Bridget Bodnar of Marketplace to discuss his new book "Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone".

In the interview, Mr. Nadella describes how Microsoft's original mission under Bill Gates was "a PC in every home and on every desk putting to connect everyone and change the economy".  Mr. Nadella poses that that mission was really a goal but that the mission now is "to democratize the use of technology to create more technology"

My takeaway:  leadership, in a nonprofit, the board, must be clear about what is its mission as its complete driver for all that its nonprofit does.

 

 

Nonprofit Board Composition #NonprofitBoards

There has been a long tradition where nonprofit advocacy groups have sought to change the policies and practices of for-profit corporations by disrupting shareholder meetings; buying shares to gain the right to propose alternative policies and practices; and, selling off shares when the nonprofit believes the corporation does "evil" (think tobacco or guns).  And yes, these efforts have been met with mixed results sometimes overwhelming successful and other times not.

But according to the San Francisco Weekly, the shoe has also been on the other foot where for-profit industries have gotten seats on nonprofit boards and led these organizations down paths that serve to more positively affect the corporate agendas than the nonprofit agendas.  On the surface this appears to be plain and simple conflicts of interest on the part of the corporate seat-holders but not so much that non-seat holders aren't organizing to change the situation such that mission returns as the number one priority of these boards.  

At minimum, nonprofit boards should be clear about what has brought members to the table and pay attention to plan, policies and practice proposals that benefit those in the seats more than those who the nonprofit was established to benefit.

Here's the article.

Real Estate Execs Disrupt Nonprofit Housing

There's a stealthy way developers get approval to build, build, build.

Over the past few years, the real estate industry has been cozying up to organizations that exist to help the poorest San Franciscans. It’s not well-known, but many of the nonprofits responsible for housing thousands of low-income San Franciscans and managing millions of dollars in public funding are run by people involved in real estate development, raising the question of whether, for example, an executive from Wells Fargo should be making decisions that affect some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.

This conflict of interest can be stressful for tenants.

“We have no say,” says Phyllis Bowie, who lives at Midtown Apartments, a 139-unit complex in the Fillmore that’s managed by the city’s largest housing nonprofit, Mercy Housing. Bowie says most tenants are afraid to raise issues and “rock the boat,” because they can’t afford to live anywhere else. Part of the problem, she says, is that upper-management teams and boards are filled with people from some of the country’s largest real-estate firms — such as BRE or Belvedere Capital. Employees of these corporate giants are generally less interested in renters’ well-being than in turning a profit.

But renters do have allies. Tommi Avicolli Mecca of the Housing Rights Committee ensures that residents get heard over the blare of executives, who he believes have an agenda that puts profits first on the priority list, with tenants toward the bottom.

“There’s no money for [the real estate industry] in housing for low-income people,” Mecca says. He believes the pay-off for real estate companies like Pacific Union Development is “obviously about PR. And PR equals money for them.”

For-profit companies have a lot to gain from the backing of respected nonprofits, and it’s old news that pro-development forces have done their best to win over — or, in some cases, take over — community groups as a way to influence politics. In 2015 and 2016, two attempts by pro-development groups San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation and the YIMBY Party attempted to win enough member votes to take over the board of the local Sierra Club chapter, but failed in their efforts.

In this case, the objective was transparent. To win a mark of approval from an environmental nonprofit in San Francisco would give political clout to developers looking to build market-rate condos. Still, attempts to garner what would have been a great-looking stamp of endorsement for future political mailers and email blasts flopped.

But at groups like BRIDGE, it’s executive boards and not the public who appoint people to leadership positions. As a result, BRIDGE Housing has no tenants on its board.

Take another one of San Francisco’s largest low-income housing providers: the Mission Housing Development Corporation (MHDC). Its executive director, Sam Moss, previously worked as a realtor. Moss — and, by association, MHDC — endorse deregulation and developer-funded market-rate housing that activists argue displaces low-income San Franciscans.

Moss became MHDC’s head in 2013; since then, he’s become a board member of the pro-market rate development YIMBY Action, and Mayor Ed Lee appointed him to the board tasked with the development of Treasure Island. He’s also vocally opposed to what he hashtags as #LocalControl, comparing working-class communities of color who want to lead the conversation around housing in the city to anti-immigrant activist and right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.

MHDC, BRIDGE, and the board of Mercy Housing — which puts out the majority of the city’s affordable housing — signed on to support local state Senator and ex-Sup. Scott Wiener’s Senate Bill 35, which in practice could fast-track majority market-rate residential projects. SB 35 allows real estate companies to bypass certain hearings on proposed construction while requiring that new construction be 10 percent affordable.

“The danger is it eliminates that public process. It’s not just about people voicing concerns, but about letting residents be part of the process,” says Chris Durazo, co-director of housing and land development at Causa Justa, a nonprofit in the Mission District that serves mostly low-income Latinx people. Decades ago, the displacement of Fillmore’s African-American population and South of Market’s Filipino community “caused lawsuits to create the public vetting before these decisions to make it happen,” and now all that’s being dismantled, she says.

No big surprise: Sierra Club, Causa Justa, and the Housing Action Committee all opposed SB 35. When the Senate passed it on Sep. 15, Mecca expressed his angst: “No one law is going to kill us, but it can only cause more pain and suffering for those who have the least and more money for those who have the most.”

The fear of tenants and their advocates is that more housing for rich people could upend neighborhoods, just as the Fillmore District did during redevelopment in the 1960s. Under the direction of the organization then-dubbed the San Francisco Planning and Urban Renewal Association (SPUR) and the city’s San Francisco Redevelopment Agency head Justin Herman, the city wholly remade a thriving, mostly Black neighborhood. (Herman famously called the Fillmore’s land “too valuable to permit poor people to park on it.”)

SPUR, which often takes the lead on helping Bay Area developers navigate the process of constructing new buildings, has since tried to distance itself from its overtly racist past. Doug Shoemaker, President of Mercy Housing California, tells SF Weekly that while he maintains a seat on SPUR’s board and that the Mercy Board includes just one tenant, the fears of people like Midtown resident Phyllis Bowie are unfounded.

“Tenants should not feel afraid to come forward with issues they’re having,” he says.

In the Tenderloin, where San Franciscans face chronic homelessness at some of the highest rates in the country, the co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, Randy Shaw, commutes from one of the priciest neighborhoods in the Berkeley hills. His blog, Beyond Chron, is fervently pro-market-rate development.

Shaw tells SF Weekly that “in our 37 years of operation, THC has never had anyone on its board from the real estate industry,” but board member Helene Sautou previously worked as a project manager for commercial real estate firms, and she was a director of the real-estate group Commercial Real Estate Women SF.

Apart from building alleged community support for the general idea of “more is more” development — whether market-rate or affordable — some groups believe executives are helping to directly move certain projects forward. Development company Groupi prepares to “re-invent” Market Street next to the Tenderloin’s Warfield Theater with 242 new condos. Its chances for project approval got a boost from the THC and Shaw, who promoted the project on his blog and at City Hall. In exchange, Group i promised to throw down several million dollars that could go to acquiring another building of 60 to 70 units, that would be “all affordable” and administered by the THC.

Likewise, on Sep. 14, a coalition representing several community groups called Communities United for Health and Justice held a protest in the Excelsior over what they called a “backroom deal” between BRIDGE and local Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, that could make room for market-rate condos the coalition believes will displace low-income neighbors in one of the city’s few remaining working-class areas. As the blog 48Hills reports, Safaí was previously a consultant for the developer and property management company SST Investments.

The 16th Street BART station could be home to what opponents have dubbedthe “Monster in the Mission,” a new 10-story complex that would change the entire landscape of the neighborhood. (Only 42 of its 330 units are considered affordable.)

One of its opponents, a resident at the MHDC’s Altamont Hotel who didn’t want to be named, says the executives supporting the project are “in developers’ pockets” and “don’t give a shit about us.” Tellingly, the Monster’s developer is Maximus Real Estate Partners, which has hired previous MHDC director Larry Del Carlo as a consultant.

Putting pro-industry people in higher-up positions at affordable housing non-profits that then influence the way that cities approve new market-rate developments is a savvy move. But there’s also a human cost, as Durazo put it. The strategy works for the industry, but when those same nonprofits cosign anti-tenant moves, the industry’s desires prevail over the community’s needs.

Nonprofit Board Risk Management #NonprofitBoards

Managing risk and ensuring compliance using prudence as a guideline are recognized as what a nonprofit board does, perhaps best, if it is fulfilling its fiduciary duty.  But as the following offering from Chad Bowman at the American Theater poses, these actions should not be considered "enough".  The pursuit of mission, as grand and as bold as can be pursued, should be considered as equally important a responsibility of a nonprofit board.  And, Chad offers, tough times are not inherently the time when boards should run away or hunker down.  This is a well thought-out piece that can serve as a great strategic discussion for every nonprofit board.

 

 

Safe Programming Is a Big Risk

Caution may make sense in a crisis, but our long-term missions require us to make bolder choices.

• By Chad Bauman
   

This is the inaugural edition of Managing Expectations, a new monthly column about the world of theatre management, administration, and producing.

I’m writing in late August. If you live in Wisconsin, and perhaps if are a fan of “Game of Thrones,” it is also known as “Winter is Coming.” Soon our temperatures will fall into the 50s and the Green Bay Packers will start playing, signaling that it’s time for two important milestones at my theatre: the launch of our fall productions and the beginning of budget season.

We’ve been diligently preparing all summer for both. But as we start to put pen to paper on our 65th anniversary season at Milwaukee Repertory Theater, I’ve been wrestling with how we as a field define risk in the American theatre, particularly in relation to mission fulfillment.

As 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, regional theatres have the responsibility and privilege to represent our communities, and in many cases our communities have changed or are changing rapidly, which should beg the question: Are our theatres keeping pace? Or maybe even leading? If not, what role does fear play in our decision-making?

During the last global economic crisis, several theatres exhausted their cash reserves and dipped into their endowments, while earned revenue became much more of a driving factor to offset plummeting sources of contributed revenue. For some theatres to remain alive, box office revenue had to become king, and that is heavily driven by show selection. In an attempt to adapt to the worsening economic environment, some began to program “safer” seasons, while others increased ticket prices to drive more revenue and adopted business models that looked far more similar to Broadway than regional theatres just a few years prior.

I had a small consultancy practice at the time, and I noticed that many of my clients were selecting their seasons from a place of fear: What shows, they wondered, were “guaranteed” to bring in the money? In a time of growing uncertainty, the one variable that could be controlled were operating expenses. Shows got smaller, cheaper, and less “risky,” although as I’ve previously discussed, trying to determine what is “safe” in the theatre could be considered a fool’s errand. For many of these theatres, one wrong move was the difference between life and death. While perhaps necessary at the time, the adjustments they made were not part of a forward-thinking strategy.

Almost a decade later, the stock market is hitting all-time highs, but the field hasn’t yet fully recovered. The most recent TCG Theater Facts report shows that total attendance has decreased and subscription tickets sold are at a five-year low, while every category of expenditure was higher in inflation-adjusted dollars over time, working capital was negative in every year from 2011 to 2015, and growth in cash reserves lagged inflation by 26 percent. It’s not surprising that many theatres remain as risk-adverse today as they were during the height of the recession, because there is no safety net. But perhaps the greatest risk today is to wait until sunnier forecasts arrive to make vital programmatic adjustments that are desperately needed to serve mission and communities.

Two years ago I was lucky enough to participate in Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management as part of their Social Enterprise Initiative. In all honesty, I anticipated that this would be another program where business executives try to tell nonprofit leaders how we need to operate like for-profits. To my complete surprise, Prof. Dutch Leonard opened the program by saying that unlike our for-profit counterparts, nonprofit leaders have a much more complex landscape to maneuver, as our measures of success don’t come as easily. Rather, while for-profits measure themselves in part on the x- and y-axes of profits and losses, we must also weigh a z-axis: mission fulfillment.

Being theatre managers, many of us remain more comfortable working on the x- and y-axes, much like our for-profit counterparts. But it is critical for us to lead on mission. Strengthening the financial position of a theatre is useless unless it is in service of what we endeavor to accomplish. In the dual leadership structure of many regional theatres, it is often expected that the artistic director will take the lead on mission and vision, and that artistic directors will fight hard for the programmatic future they’d like to see.

But managing directors are equally responsible for ensuring that future, and, I’d argue, have a greater responsibility to advocate. Why? Boards of directors can gravitate toward managing directors. As corporate leaders fill spots on nonprofit boards, there’s a natural affinity: Managing directors speak their language. We often have fancy graphs and sophisticated data analysis. When given the preference between talking financials and discussing mission, some trustees may feel more comfortable with the former rather than the latter. That’s why boards need to hear it from managers too: Playing it “safe” is no longer safe, if it ever was.

I don’t mean to advocate that prudent financial management is uncalled for—only that we need to recalibrate how we measure and discuss risk. We can also prepare our theatres to reasonably take on additional perceived risk. In joining Milwaukee Rep, I didn’t anticipate that after 60 years in business it would want to redefine the mission of the company. But in taking a hard look at how to best serve our community, we recognized that what worked previously does not work now. Together with our visionary artistic director, Mark Clements, an engaged board, and dedicated community leaders, staff, and artists, we boldly stated a new vision for the future and developed a strategic plan to support it.

From this work, expertly guided by Greg Kandel of Management Consultants for the Arts, came an amazing opportunity: a community galvanized around a stretch goal for how a theatre could lead in a post-industrial Midwest city with plenty of opportunity. For this goal to be achieved, we needed significantly more investment, and launched a $10-million capital campaign to support programs, not brick and mortar. The campaign built our endowment, increased our cash reserve, and gave us seed money for important new-play and community engagement programs.

But most importantly, it gave us the ability to risk. In raising money as part of this campaign, we found that many donors understood that risk capital was the only way to look beyond today to address tomorrow.

Change is hard. I’ll admit it sometimes scares me. There are no guarantees. But how is that different from anything else in the theatre? It does surprise me when theatres elect to stick with a failing business model that is most certainly destined to lead to disastrous results over the long term rather than risking throwing it out the window for a shot at success. Why rearrange the chairs on the Titanic? Better to build the best life raft you can, take a leap, and paddle in the direction you want to go.

Adopting temporary tactics to weather a storm is perfectly understandable in most cases. But we can’t adopt long-term strategic plans with the primary goal of simply staying alive. If we aren’t fulfilling our missions, what is the point? We have the privilege to produce art that reflects of the diverse communities we serve; to employ artists who push us beyond our comfort zone; to engage, develop, and nurture a heterogeneous talent pool that challenges us to examine the issues our communities grapple with from multiple perspectives. If the fear of the unknown is so overwhelmingly daunting, consider what it would be like if your theatre becomes entirely irrelevant.

This is not meant to imply that we, or any of us, have it all figured out. Far from it. Only that I’m beginning to look at risk a little differently.

Chad Bauman is the managing director of Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

Nonprofit Non-Governance #NonprofitBoards

Hooray for Laurene Powell Jobs (yes, Steve Jobs' widow)!  She has struck another cord for recognizing the value of the press during a time when the long-standing, constitutionally valued institutions are being shunned by those who aren't able to fully control truth and openness.  The following Washington Post article describes the purchase of the Atlantic magazine by the Emerson Collective, a quasi non-profit furthering the interests, fortunately in my opinion, good interests, of Laurene Powell Jobs.  

But as the article points out, the Emerson Collective is not your typical accountable-to-the-public nonprofit.  It's an LLC doing socially active grantmaking.  The Collective has no board and little responsibility to discuss its investments.  A good thing-perhaps only if it does good things.  But "good things" are in the eye of the beholder.  Greedy capitalists can say they do good things too and they do do some good things.  But making society better-off - what I believe to be the purpose of grantmakers - not always guaranteed under this form of philanthropy.  Caveat emptor!

David Bradley is selling the Atlantic magazine to Laurene Powell Jobs’s nonprofit

David Bradley said the sale of the Atlantic to Emerson Collective would involve a slow transition from his leadership to that of the new owner’s. The price was not disclosed. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

By Todd C. Frankel and Thomas Heath July 28 

Emerson Collective, a little-known but big-money group funded by Laurene Powell Jobs’s Apple fortune, took its biggest step into the scrutinizing national spotlight Friday by agreeing to acquire a majority stake in Washington-based Atlantic magazine.

The deal comes after Atlantic Media owner David Bradley spent a year searching for a buyer for the influential print and online journal that sits at the heart of his news empire. Bradley, in a staff memo announcing the deal, said he narrowed down the candidates and, “From the first, Laurene Powell Jobs sat atop the list.”

Now, Powell Jobs joins the list of people using fortunes minted in technology to change the media landscape. Those undertakings include eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s investment in the Intercept; the Mercer family’s financial support of Breitbart; Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’s ill-fated acquisition of the New Republic; and Amazon founder Jeffrey P. Bezos’s purchase of The Washington Post.

 

The Atlantic agreement is not Emerson Collective’s first news media venture, but it is its most high-profile. The organization is taking control of a 160-year-old publication respected for its writing on ideas and politics. Emerson also has contributed to online news sites Axios and ProPublica.

Emerson Collective, which declined to comment beyond issuing a news release, also tends to avoid publicity. Most of its grant-making is done on the condition that it remain anonymous. Powell Jobs, 53, with a net worth estimated at more than $11 billion, is the widow of Apple co-founder of Steve Jobs.

Here, too, Emerson Collective is blazing a path increasingly popular in Silicon Valley by disbursing its money through a private limited liability company — or LLC — instead of a foundation or philanthropy. This structure allows for both for-profit investments and traditional charitable activities. It also comes without many of the nonprofit world’s restrictions on political or issue advocacy. Other groups arranged in this manner include the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, created by Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

“These are hybrids in many ways,” said Amir Pasic, dean of Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

The arrangement gives the billionaires who use it more control over how their money is used as they pursue public-minded goals. They can deploy funds in start-ups that are seeking to make a profit, for example.

But less is known about how these companies spend their money, because fewer public disclosures are required. That could lead to calls for greater transparency, Pasic said.

“The more they play in the realm of public policy, the more people might talk about the outsize role of billionaires in affecting public policy,” he said.

Emerson Collective, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and named in honor of Ralph Waldo Emerson, was created in 2011. Its goal is “removing barriers to opportunity so people can live to their full potential.” Many of its efforts have been focused on education and immigration reform. In 2016, it awarded 10 grants worth $10 million each for efforts to rethink U.S. high schools. It also has invested in the education start-ups Udacity and AltSchool, both of which aim to remake the school experience.

 

Last week, Emerson Collective participated in a $40 million fundraising round for virtual-reality start-up Within. This year, it invested in the government accountability site OpenGov and also Neighborly, a start-up that aims to increase funding for public projects such as parks.

This year at the tech-focused Code Conference, Powell Jobs recalled visiting President Trump in a bid to persuade him to not deport those brought into the country illegally as children, a group commonly known as “dreamers.”

She also hinted at her philanthropic thinking, saying, “I’m personally interested in deploying capital in the most effective way to create the greatest good that we can.”

Powell Jobs then was asked whether she would be interested in buying the New York Times. She did not answer directly, saying only that the Times was “a national treasure that should be preserved.”

Emerson Collective is buying the Atlantic’s operations, but Bradley is keeping related media businesses such as the online news site Quartz. The deal also calls for Bradley to retain a minority stake in the Atlantic, with the expectation that Emerson will complete a full purchase in a few years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Leadership at the Atlantic will remain unchanged, according to an announcement by the company.

The Atlantic magazine is part of Atlantic Media, an amalgam of news publications and businesses employing 730 people. The overall venture has about $135 million of revenue annually.

Atlantic Media has endured a rough road, largely because of the digital revolution. Bradley has said he has lost more than $100 million over the past decade. In 2015, he closed the print version of National Journal after years of struggling to turn a profit. It continues to operate as an online entity.

Bradley, 64, made his fortune by founding two companies, the Advisory Board and Corporate Executive Board, which he took public and sold. The sales gave him hundreds of millions of dollars to pursue his journalism interests.

Bradley and his wife, Katherine Bradley, are a big presence in Washington. They are also investors in Axios, the news company started by Washington journalists Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.

Bradley foreshadowed changes in his media business, which is based at the Watergate complex near Foggy Bottom, in an interview with The Washington Post this year.

“I want to find somebody who will love it as much as I’ve loved it,” he said in the interview.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Emerson Collective’s contributions to ProPublica.

 

 

 

 

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Todd C. Frankel is a reporter covering people and policy.

  Follow @tcfrankel

Thomas Heath is a local business reporter and columnist, writing about entrepreneurs and various companies big and small in the Washington Metropolitan area. Previously, he wrote about the business of sports for The Post’s sports section for most of a decade.

  Follow @addedvalueth

Nonprofit Board Conflict in Public #NonprofitBoards

By now it's likely you have heard of the brouhaha happening over at amFar.  The details are a bit technical but the end result has been two board resignations and four board members going to the NY State Attorney General and big name actors speaking-up on behalf of a big-time producer who is at the center of the controversy and who made a maybe questionable donation that had some strings attached for the benefit of an unrelated (to amFar) nonprofit. And the size of gift: $600,000.  Yes, sizable in many circles.

Underlying the conflict are details like whether the board was fully informed and/or understood the "deal"; whether the board chair didn't make a deal without full authorization of the board; and, whether/if donors were fully informed about the purpose or use of their gift.  Right now it appears that the only victors in this event are the attorneys who were initially consulted to assess the correctness of the transaction.  

Of course nothing about this conflict is in the best interest of amFar nor of the board.  Incidents like these often result in uncertain if not negative relationships between board members, especially the four who brought the situation to the attention of the State Attorney General and certainly the members who have resigned.  It is important to recognize that nonprofit boards, all governing bodies for that matter, are relational and transactional in their nature.  The relational element most often informs if not influences the transactional and recovery in the case of events such as the amFar board is experience is not a simple task.  Steps that could have minimally helped: more transparency on the part of the board chair and stronger policy to inform transactions.  

Here's the New York Times assessment of the situation.

 

Nonprofit Board Personnel Committees #NonprofitBoards

"When personnel committees of nonprofit boards recruit new board members, they need to include sufficient numbers of women on their lists. And when they recruit those women, they need to assign them to facilities and finance committees, not just to human resources and public relations." (Journal Gazette).

This quote from a Journal Gazette (Indiana) article is good enough as a missive on the history and merits of diversity and particularly inclusion of women as leaders.  But what caught my attention is this one sentence referring to the role of personnel committees as the "place" for recruiting board members.  In my practice I rarely recommend the development of a board personnel committee except for the purpose of searching for a new exec or conducting the annual review and maybe for the development or review of personnel policies.  At best I view personnel "committees" not as standing entities but as task forces charged with a clear task and only existing until this task is completed.

I pose instead that a standing board Governance Committee is the ideal place for mapping out a board member recruitment plan (that engages all board members in the recruitment process); on-boarding; board training; and the annual board self-assessment among other board "care and feeding" tasks.  Effective boards are adopting Governance Committees for these tasks as a place for bigger picture thinking and ensuring the "small" tasks get done.  

Personnel Committees, time to revisit the concept.

Partnership Not A Merger just One employee #NonprofitBoards

It's difficult for me to think about the focus of this article as anything but a big "so what" given that the underlying topic is the United Way - an institution who, as a dying dinosaur in many communities, has pretty much lost the opportunity to do the one thing it did best for many many years: the collection and redistribution of contributions from payroll deduction.  At this point I lean toward saying: hey, just give it up - transfer your best staff to the community foundation and say goodnight!  Ah, but it's not time to go for every United Way.  A smattering of United Ways are still in communities where there are big corporations and a big public sector and payroll deduction remains viable and some have even found other useful roles like being the convener and back-bone agency for collective impact initiatives.

That said, the so-called experiment described in the following Albany Democratic Herald will serve United Ways that are not quite fossils, yet.  The experiment involves sharing a CEO between the United Ways.  What makes the experiment an experiment is not that the concept of sharing or splitting an executive between two or more nonprofits is a new concept in as much as this is going to happen in geographic spaces that appear to not be that used to working well together.  That is important and often the ingredient for when any nonprofit gets together to do anything with one or more nonprofits.  And, it is very possible, at least from my own experience in bringing nonprofits together to "share" that the sharing could evolve to where there is only one player.  What is clear for me in partnerships like this is that small transactions are very helpful in developing relationships between the parties and relationships are what can lead to unified organizations.  Of course much rides on the shoulder of the joint CEO but just as much rides on the boards being willing to cross the lines and talk.

Here's the article.

Think Too Much: United Way launches a grand experiment

• Sep 10, 2017

 

United Way's new regional CEO for Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties is Blake Pang.

• Mark Ylen, Democrat-Herald

 

The revolution arrived on Friday, Sept. 1 in the mid-valley, as Blake Pang, the new regional CEO of the United Way organizations in Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, started his job.

"Revolution" might be too strong a word. But maybe not. In any event, the experiment by a pair of United Way organizations to give a two-year trial run to a regional approach is undeniably a remarkable leap of faith by the agencies. (Remember that Linn County has its own United Way organization, but Benton and Lincoln counties are served by a separate United Way, so you have two organizations covering the three counties.)

And now you have one regional director, Pang, setting the tone for the two organizations (and the three counties). Each organization will continue to be directed by its own board of directors. The 37-year-old Pang will divide his time between offices in Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties.

The move already has attracted some national attention in nonprofit circles. And it's raised some eyebrows in the mid-valley, especially among people who believe the differences between the counties are so pronounced that it's unwise to try a regional approach.

Pang apparently doesn't see it that way. In an interview last week with the Democrat-Herald's Alex Paul, Pang recognized the differences between the counties but noted that United Way wants to focus on universal needs. "People want their families to be safe, for their community to be vibrant and for there to be opportunities for quality education," Pang said. "Every person should have the ability to live his or her life and to have an opportunity for meaningful work."

Pang also noted that different communities might have different approaches to reaching those goals, and said he would work to accommodate those differences.

One of Pang's challenges will be figuring out how to best blend those different approaches with the universal needs United Way wants to address.

That'll be just one of Pang's challenges. 

If you spend any time talking with people who work with the mid-valley's nonprofit organizations, a couple of themes quickly come into focus. 

Here's one of the big ones: It's becoming harder to raise the money to keep these organizations going. Big funding sources such as foundations are starting to dry up. The competition is increasingly intense for dollars. It's not the sort of landscape that encourages organizations to work together, although some granting entities increasingly are looking for evidence of partnerships.

 

Here's another issue: It can be hard for an organization that's headquartered in one mid-valley county to gain much traction in another county, even though it might be providing essential services in both. For example, ABC House works with child abuse cases throughout the mid-valley but has struggled with the perception that it's just an Albany organization. On the other side of the river, the Coalition Against Rape and Domestic Violence is increasingly active in Linn County but still is perceived in some circles as just a Corvallis group.

These are cases in which county lines are meaningless. If this United Way experiment can help to erase these useless boundaries, that would be good.

Here's another issue that goes along with a mid-valley that is crowded with nonprofit organizations: Such a surfeit sometimes results in a nonprofit arena packed with organizations working hard to guard their home turf.  

But perhaps this is the most remarkable thing about this United Way experiment: Two boards of directors, each filled with people who are devoted to their own communities, are extending an invitation to their counterparts to come share their turf. That takes a real measure of courage.

There are plenty of ways that this experiment could go off the rails, and you can bet that the two boards of directors have spent time diagramming those out. (And let's hope they've got open channels of communications to deal with unforeseen bumps.)

Despite the very real risks, the payoff here could be huge, both for revitalized United Way organizations but also to show nonprofit organizations another route forward — and, in the end, to provide better service to the people who depend on those organizations. That's really the bottom line here. (mm) 

Nonprofit Board Term Limits: How Long is Too Long #NonprofitBoards

As the following Peninsula Clarion states, Mr. Bill Radtke is ending his 20 years on the board of the local Habitat for Humanity Chapter.  Yes, you read it correctly: 20 years.  Mr. Radtke, congratulations and kudos for your service, commitment and, equally important, endurance.

One take-away from the article: in this Habitat, the board doesn't just spend its time governing (you know-fulfilling its fiduciary duties).  Members also serve as volunteers apparently doing all the legwork required in getting a house up and lived-in from the idea, to building or rehab to identifying the residents and I am sure other volunteer activities as well.  

20 years is a very long time to be serving in these two capacities.  And yes, I know, this is not the only board where governing and volunteering are both part of the job.  The big question: is this a sustainable model: particularly the governing function (I am actually quite good with the volunteering function lasting until someone poops out)?  The generally understood answer by those of us who study and consult on governance matters: nope, not sustainable for either the individuals or the organization.  The list of why not is extensive and if you ask me, I'm happy to discuss the list.  But at minimum, a board without board turnover puts itself at risk of not having a functional board, at some point.  Mr. Radtke, as a volunteer, should be held-up as a role model for all those who would give so selflessly.  This Habitat board, and those nonprofits without board term limits: not a good example.  

Thank you Habitat Peninsula for this governance lesson.

 

After about two decades of serving on the board of the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, Radtke is stepping down. There’s no particular reason other than “it’s time,” he said. It doesn’t mean he’ll be slowing down, though — he and his wife Sharon are planning several trips abroad within the year and he said he’ll stay involved with Habitat for Humanity in the future.

The organization has built more than a dozen houses on the central peninsula, many in Kenai, and plans to keep going. Scattered around the neighborhood near the Second Street house are a number of other lots donated by the city of Kenai that will be the sites for houses in the future, Radtke said.

Part of the reason the organization tends to build houses in the city is to avoid the additional cost of the utilities for houses out in the borough, he said.

“(Outside the city) you have to put in sewer, drill a well,” he said. “It just adds up.”

He’s been involved with most of them, speaking to the Kenai City Council about land donations and sweating over the construction himself. Most recently, he’s been working with the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District on a potential partnership to invite the vocational technical education students from the high schools to work in the Habitat for Humanity houses so they can get some firsthand education.

It’s full circle for Radtke, who taught at Kenai Middle School for about a decade before retiring. Before that, he was briefly a professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and taught for a number of years at schools in rural Alaska, including at Nanwalek on the south side of Kachemak Bay.

“It’s a perfect blend,” he said. “I’ve always been concerned about the kids … this could help them build the skills they need.”

Originally from Wisconsin, Radtke said when he was young he identified three things he wanted to do: to study forestry, to go to Australia and to see Alaska. He accomplished all three, graduating with a degree in civil engineering and working for the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon before taking an opportunity to go to Australia. However, the job he was offered in Sydney didn’t fit the bill when he got there, he said. So, he turned down the job and jumped on a train to Perth to see what work he could find.

After teaching in Australia for a number of years, he visited Alaska to hunt and fish and fell in love with the Interior, eventually teaching in the rural schools for a number of years before returning to Fairbanks, marrying, and eventually going back to teaching in the rural schools before coming south.

And it’s hardly the last adventure. Every year, he and Sharon make a list of things they want to do and run down the list, checking off new destinations and projects, he said. This year, they’re headed for Prague — “it’s on the list,” he said.

Radtke’s conversation is full of other people’s stories and names. He said he still sees the former house recipients in the community and is happy to see them doing well. They all had to put in the 500 hours building the houses in the first place, but it didn’t have to be all one person — the 500 hours can be split among family members and friends, he said, so a whole recipient family can be working on a house together and build relationships doing it. Other volunteers, some of whom are laymen and some of whom are professionals, donate their time and skills as well, he said.

“You meet all these people that are so community minded,” he said. “And it’s wonderful.”

Habitat for Humanity board member Jo Watts noted the projects Radtke had been working on recently, including the lot donations and the school district partnership.

“He’s been on the board for over 20 years,” she said. “He just does a lot in the community.”

Radtke encouraged other people to jump into volunteering on Habitat for Humanity’s local chapter board. The board itself always needs participants to help organize the actual effort building the houses as well as selecting the families, which is a hard job, he said.

As Radtke stood in the shell of the unfinished house on Second Street, a cheerful call came from the garage. A man walked through the framing boards, a man who Radtke recognized immediately as a former house recipient and recalled details about his family immediately. Just before leaving, the man offered to share some smoked salmon before calling a cheerful goodbye and a gibe that the new house would be even better than the one he received through Habitat. As the man’s car engine roared to life and he took off, Radtke smiled.

“See, that, that’s what it’s all about,” he said.

 

Reach Elizabeth Earl at [email protected]

Executive Orders have gone beyond Legislative (aka Board) Policy Making #NonprofitBoards

When a nonprofit executive inserts their own values and interests in their directives (operational policies) I believe the board should step-in and redirect.  Now I’m not saying I believe board members should ever micromanage.  Micromanaging usurps the authority of an exec to fully implement the mission, values and even strategic plan as the board has devised.  But do note, I believe a nonprofit exec is recruited and retained to pursue mission based on the board’s values (as specified in their values statement).  When I advise boards on these matters I divert them from micromanaging but reinforce their duty to ensure that their values are followed.  And, when the executives fail or attempt to go around their boards, I offer the board the options on how to either "reign-in" or release their manager.

Over multiple years, the legislative branch of the US government has admittedly been challenged in making policy/legislation.  As a consequence, the executive branch, in theory responsible to the legislative branch, has used executive orders to "fill-in'" or substitute for the guidance that legislative direction would have provided and in fact, limited executive branch action outside of the legislative branch's dictate.  Presidential executive orders in particular have just become opportunities to establish, well, a different set of values than those that may have been agreed upon by legislators.  I think it’s time we revisit the purpose of executive orders and reign-them back-in.  Let’s ask legislators to do their job and govern to establish the country’s values and not rely on the personal preferences of the executive branch.

Nonprofits in Pittsburgh: Good or Bad #NonprofitBoards

The Post-Gazette has created the most in-depth examination of at least a swath of the Pittsburgh nonprofit sector I believe I have ever seen.  The article covers a wide range of topics from of course salaries, to economic impact, to sources of revenue and well, you name it.  I must say that there are times when the article feels like an anti-nonprofit missive: basically, sure these organizations make an impact on the lives of Pittsburgh citizens, but they also gobble up funds and property and don't pay taxes.  But you be the judge.  This is the kind of analyses that might prove useful in every community.  Here's the link.